{"id":240467,"date":"2025-10-26T02:38:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T02:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/240467\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T02:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T02:38:07","slug":"kucherov-reaches-1000-nhl-points-with-lightning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/240467\/","title":{"rendered":"Kucherov reaches 1,000 NHL points with Lightning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nikita Kucherov<\/a> reached 1,000 NHL points with an assist for the Tampa Bay Lightning in their 4-3 win against the Anaheim Ducks at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Kucherov achieved the milestone at 12:19 of the second period when he got the secondary assist on a goal by Jake Guentzel<\/a> that gave Tampa Bay a 2-1 lead. He sent a cross-ice pass to Brayden Point in the left face-off circle, and Point fed Guentzel at the right post, where he redirected the pass with his skate.<\/p>\n

“[Emil] Lilleberg moved the puck quick to me,\u201d Kucherov said, \u201cand I was able to enter the zone and find ‘Pointer,’ and Pointer did a good just of finding [Guentzel at the] back door. That’s what I saw.”<\/p>\n

Kucherov then added an assist for point No. 1,001 on Anthony Cirelli’s power-play goal that made it 4-3 at 16:45 of the third period. He has 359 goals and 642 assists in 12 seasons, all with the Lightning.<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old forward is the 101st player in NHL history to get 1,000 points and the second to do so in Lightning history, joining Steven Stamkos<\/a>. Stamkos had 1,137 points (555 goals, 582 assists) over 16 seasons with Tampa Bay. He’s in his second season with the Nashville Predators.<\/p>\n

“It was a great feeling,\u201d Kucherov said of achieving the milestone. \u201cIt’s something I never thought I would reach. I’m really honored and fortunate to have great teammates along the way. Without them I wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t have done that. The fan support has been a huge part of it and I’m just really blessed.”<\/p>\n

Among active players, Kucherov is the third-fastest to reach the milestone, doing so in 809 games. Only Connor McDavid<\/a> of the Edmonton Oilers (659) and Sidney Crosby<\/a> (757) of the Pittsburgh Penguins reached the mark in fewer games.<\/p>\n

“It’s been a privilege to stand on the bench to watch him get a thousand,\u201d Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. \u201cIt seems like just yesterday he was [starting] in the League. He’s a special, special player and he’s going to go down as one of the greatest, if not the greatest player, to play in this organization. He’s got a lot of runway left in him.”<\/p>\n

Kucherov, who won the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player in 2018-19, has seven points (two goals, five assists) in six games this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nikita Kucherov reached 1,000 NHL points with an assist for the Tampa Bay Lightning in their 4-3 win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-240467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}